Sterling
by Homestar Driver
Summary: Slightly angsty one-shot about the dangers of following Severus around in muggle cities. Slashy overtones, but nothing to provoke red-paint throwing. Moony-torture!


A/N: Greetings, one and everyone. Welcome to this, the Homestar Driver's first Harry Potter fanfic. If you will take a look at my resume, you will see that I write the fastest and hardest and like nobody's business! Okay, enough Homestar silliness. Anyway, any and all reviews ext-uh-rem-uh-leh welcome! Just push da button.  
  
"Sterling"  
  
I didn't even feel the blade pierce my skin. All I could feel was a devouring, sickening heat spreading up from the gaping slice in my abdomen. I didn't see the frightened cutpurse drop the knife and flee. All I could see was Severus standing beside me, gripping my shoulders roughly. I could vaguely hear him calling to me, as if across a vast distance. His voice was changed from its usual sibilant purr. It sounded raw. Dizzily I wondered whether it was anger which had transformed his voice. Surely he was furious with me for pushing him out of the way so roughly, let alone for tailing him through the darkened muggle city streets. His voice swam hazily in and out of my consciousness.  
  
"Lupin. Lupin, answer me."  
  
I tried to answer him, I truly did. I took in a hitching breath and opened my mouth, but only succeeded in producing a wet, rasping cough. I felt my lungs collapse in on themselves and my body slowly sink to the ground. The burning in my blood subsided, ushering in a fierce, biting cold. Gratefully I sank deeper into the warm arms that had enveloped me. I breathed again, slower this time, and was rewarded with a slight tremor of my uncooperative vocal cords. "Hello, Severus."  
  
Merlin, my voice sounded so weak. Little more than a moan. I didn't have much longer. I submitted as I felt Severus turn me onto my back and probe around the seeping wound with surprisingly gently fingers. "It's not that bad," he pronounced. "Get up and I'll take you back to your place."  
  
I blinked at him in confusion. What did he mean, 'not that bad'? My vision fuzzed over again and I winced, summoning enough strength to point at the offending instrument where it lay prone on the pavement. "Look to the knife."  
  
Palpably tense, he grabbed it unceremoniously and held it up to his eye. With my eyes squeezed shut, I could hear the barely audible growl as he ran his finger along the edge of the blade and discerned its metallic makeup. Not steel. Silver. Pure, unadulterated, lethal silver. It didn't matter that it wasn't in the form of a bullet. Bullets only kill faster because they remain lodged in the body. The slice had been deep enough to burst veins. I shuddered, belatedly feeling the pain as a slow ache centered on the wound. His slender, calloused hands combed their way through sweat-soaked strands of graying hair and down the side of my face. He had realized I was dying. I could barely catch his choked query. "Why?"  
  
I knew what he meant. Without any qualifiers or elaboration, I knew. I smiled. Not my best smile, surely, but a brave attempt under the circumstances. He knew as well as I did 'why'. I knew my feelings were unrequited, but looking into his eyes just then, it didn't matter. "You really should try to blend in a bit more, Severus. Most muggles typically skulk around in dark robes once a year."  
  
It was then that I saw what I had missed seeing all my life previous and would now never see again: I saw Severus Snape smile. At me. Not a traditional self-satisfied smirk, but a slow, genuine smile. "I suppose I should take my example from you," he said, fingering my rather shabby and now bloodstained muggle sweater. His manner suddenly changing, he shifted so he was supporting my neck and head from the side and brought his face inches away from mine. "You shouldn't have done that. The knife would not have permanently harmed me. You risked everything on a losing gambit. What could you possibly have been thinking, Lupin?"  
  
I sighed in defeat. Even now, he would not deign to call me by anything but my surname. My mental anguish, however, gave way to other considerations. There was a pressure on my chest now. Pushing unbearably against my ribs, forcing the air out of my lungs and rendering subsequent breaths painfully difficult. "I wasn't thinking," I gasped, "Not really. I just knew, somehow, that I couldn't live...after all that's happened...if I lost you, too."  
  
No more air left in my lungs. The pressure was excruciating; my eyes clouded over. The outline of Severus's face blackened, then disappeared as the poison course through my veins and plunged me into an unremitting darkness. I felt arms tighten around my failing body and I seemed to hear a soft, husky voice whisper in my unresponsive ear three words. 


End file.
